


we're never done with killing time (can i kill it with you?)

by bellabifurious



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Based on a Lorde Song, Butch!Louis, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Gay Feelings, Gen, Girl Direction, Let's Go Lesbians, No Lesbians Die, Recreational Drug Use, Slow-ish burn, Summer, femme!harry, girl!Harry, girl!Louis, harry is a florist louis is a kids soccer coach, peach lip gloss, side Ziam, weed but in a romantic way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25723027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bellabifurious/pseuds/bellabifurious
Summary: louis fucked up. harry's moved on. they smoke some weed, listen to lorde, and might just figure it out.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 10





	we're never done with killing time (can i kill it with you?)

**Author's Note:**

> content warning: drug use (marijuana), internalized homophobia, brief mention of past physical violence

Louis’ house is exactly as she remembered it, the heat still radiating in waves off of the asphalt of the cul-de-sac despite the evening settling in. Her old red pickup truck shudders into the driveway, barely standing after what she put it through. She gives it an appreciative pat— she didn’t have very much faith that it could make the trek.

The pink at the horizon blends with the peach of the mountains where the sun has already gone down, the moon standing stark against the backdrop of the desert. She had passed beautiful red rock on the drive down, the orange dust still lingering on the truck and its traces in her lungs, since the truck’s AC is shot and the windows were open for the whole drive. She breathes in, taking a moment to stand with the enormity of the sky. 

It smells like sand, honestly: New Mexico in all its glory.

As Louis walks up the porch steps, wiping her sweaty forehead with the back of her hand, she can hear the kind of laughter that can only be generated by a group of women coming from behind the rickety screen door of her childhood home, the front door thrown open in an optimistic attempt to let in some nonexistent cool breeze. 

She slips in, shutting the screen door behind her, smiling to herself as she puts her bag down in the entryway. Her mother is still in her work clothes, cute pink scrubs with dinosaurs on them. Her sisters are all smushed in the kitchen, in plain view of the door, chatting loudly while her oldest sister Lottie makes instant lemonade.

Phoebe sees her first, her eyes going comically wide from her vantage point on the counter.

“Louis!” she shrieks, bounding towards the door and flinging her limbs around her sister.

“Hey, hey!” Louis laughs, squeezing her close.

The rest of her sisters follow suit, piling on top of her.

“Did you see the new arcade when you drove in?” Phoebe asks, her face muffled in Louis’ shoulder.

“Yeah, I—“

“What about Seattle? Is it still rainy?” Lottie pulls back from the group hug, careful not to spill her glass of lemonade anymore than she already has.

“Yeah, it’s only May, so—“

“How was the drive, love, did the truck do okay?” Her mother smiles warmly, pulling her into a soft hug. Louis breathes in. She still smells like the hospital, but it’s familiar and comforting.

“It was good,” says Louis, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I stopped at a motel in Provo last night and drove down first thing this morning.” 

“Good. I worry about you, it’s such a long drive. You could have taken a plane, you know.” Jay pats her shoulders, holds her sweaty face in her hands for a moment. “Is that a sunburn?”

Louis laughs, batting her mother’s hands away. “No, mom, it’s just hot here.”

“Seattle made you soft,” Lottie remarks.

“It’s not like I was ever able to handle summers here anyway,” Louis says, tugging at her old soccer tourney t-shirt to get some cold air circulating.

“Weenie,” says Phoebe.

Louis reaches out and ruffles her hair, and Phoebe squirms away and smooths down her braids.

“Where’s your other half?” Louis asks, looking around the kitchen.

“Upstairs.” Phoebe darts a glance at their mom.

Jay sighs. “She’s upset because she has to go back to sharing with Phoebe for the summer,” she says. “She got so used to having her own room while you were at school that she’s spoiled now.”

“Oh, well, I mean, I could share with Lottie—“ Louis starts.

“Excuse me?” Lottie protests.

“No, no, no, sweetheart, the twins can share, no way are we kicking you out of your own room,” her mother insists. 

“Are you sure?” Louis looks at Phoebe pointedly, who shrugs and takes a gulp of her lemonade.

“Ugh, Lottie, this is sour,” she says.

“Make your own, then,” Lottie retorts.

“How much stuff do you have?” Jay asks, already shooing her towards the door. “Phoebe, go get your sister.”

“She’s not gonna want to help,” Phoebe says, trudging up the old carpeted stairs, running her hand across the wallpaper that hasn’t been updated since the 90s.

Louis sighs, leaning against the doorframe, taking in her childhood home. It’s exactly as she left it a year and a half ago, except for how her sisters are a little taller, her mum a little more visibly tired. The warm wood floor and kitchen is the same, the curved fake stucco doorway into the living room, the cheesy family photos, the re-glued vase on the entryway sideboard she broke while playing soccer in the house when she was nine.

“By the way, Harry’s coming over,” Lottie says, not looking up from her phone as her acrylic nails clickity-clack against the screen.

Louis’ knuckles go white from where she’s rolling up her shirt sleeves. God, how could she have forgotten?

“She says she’s here,” says Lottie, pushing past Louis to stand on the porch. 

And, because Louis’ life is a joke, a familiar tall, gangly girl with a goofy smile and curly hair pulled back in a silky scarf is wheeling her bike up their driveway, passing Louis’ old pickup truck. The bike has an actual basket on the handlebars with a bouquet of flowers in it. Tulips and baby’s breath, Louis notes.

“Hey!” the girl waves, and Louis keeps her eyes trained away from how the long sleeve of the girl’s blouse drops down to reveal her delicate forearm and long fingers.

“Hey, Harry!” Lottie calls, leaning over the porch railing. “What’s in the basket?”

“Flowers from work,” says Harry, propping her bike against the side of the house and taking the stairs two at a time with her deer legs, “They’re for Jay.”

She gives Lottie a quick hug, and hands the bouquet to Jay.

“Thank you, hon, these are lovely,” Jay says. “I’m so glad you’re here, you can bring the Tupperware back to your mother! Tell her thank you for me.” She flits back inside to find a vase for the flowers.

Louis, who has been hiding in the doorframe until this very moment, feels her armpits start to sweat. Harry turns, and Louis internally curses whatever higher powers put her in a situation where the movement of this girl’s curls are illuminated from behind with the light of desert dusk, bathing her flushed cheeks in warm yellow and gold.

“Louis!” Harry says, looking like she’s trying hard to not look stricken. “I didn’t know you were, um, I didn’t think—you’re home for the summer?“

“Hi. Yes— yeah, I’m here. For the summer,” Louis says, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning against the doorframe in what she hopes conveys nonchalance and not sheer panic. Of all days to wear a grubby t-shirt and bleach-stained soccer shorts…

Harry is suddenly very interested in the splintery wood of the porch, scuffing at it with her toe. 

Lottie looks between them like she’s watching a tennis match. “Okay… Harry, come help me with the tarp on Louis’ truck.”

“Yes! Of course,” Harry sighs with relief.

Lottie and Harry pull back the tarp over the truck bed, unhooking the bungee cords and rolling them up. As they fold up the tarp, Louis pulls her duffels out of the passenger seat and hauls them quickly back into the house. Phoebe bumps elbows with her as she runs down the porch steps and vaults into the bed of the truck, helping Lottie lift the mini fridge onto the ground.

“Mum, no, you don’t have to—“ Louis protests as she walks back into the house, pushing the screen door open with her foot. Jay pulls the duffel off of her shoulders.

“Let me help, I am your mother,” she says, tugging her backpack off for good measure and taking them upstairs. “Daisy! Get down here!” she hollers.

Louis sighs, turns, and nearly collides with a large cardboard box on legs.

“Oops!” says the box, teetering a bit.

“Hi,” Louis chuckles, steadying it.

“Thanks,” Harry’s head peeks out from around the box, her eyes far too green and sparkly for what Louis can handle right now.

Louis clears her throat, hoisting the box out of Harry’s arms, “I got it, Harry, no problem.”

“Are you sure?” Harry says, staring wide-eyed at the flex of Louis’s arms, for some reason.

“Yeah, I got it,” Louis says, adjusting her grip and turning to head up the stairs. She can feel Harry still staring at her.

“What?” Louis says.

“Nothing!” Harry squeaks, smoothing down her corduroy skirt. “Sorry!”

Louis huffs as she walks down the familiar upstairs hallway, pushing open the third door on the right with her hip. Instead of the empty, sunlit childhood bedroom she expected, she is greeted by her mother unpacking her duffel bag into the old dresser and a thoroughly miffed-looking Daisy seated cross-legged on her bed.

“Daisy!” Louis drops the box unceremoniously and goes to hug her youngest sister, but Daisy glares and shifts away.

Louis looks to her mom questioningly, and Jay just rolls her eyes and continues folding her t-shirts neatly into the top drawer.

“What’s up?” Louis sits on the bed next to her sister.

“I’m mad at you.”

“I can see that, bug.”

“Don’t call me bug. I’m thirteen.”

Louis shares a look with her mother.

“Daisy, if you’re not going to help unpack, at least don’t have such an attitude on the first day your sister is back from college in a year and a half,” says Jay.

Daisy huffs at the wall, still is determinedly not making eye contact.

“You can keep your things in here, if you want,” Louis coaxes. “So you don’t have to share a closet with Phoebe. I don’t have a ton of clothes.”

Daisy eyes her suspiciously. Louis tugs at her ponytail and Daisy squirms away, pretending not to smile.

She goes back downstairs, passing Lottie and Phoebe carrying the fridge through the kitchen to store it in the laundry room. Louis creaks open the screen door, and the noise adds to the faint cacophony of early summer in the desert: crickets, the crackling of the power lines, the occasional car passing by in the distance. 

From the porch, she can see Harry’s headscarf peeping over the cab of the truck, hiding the one box she knows is left in there. She takes a deep breath and composes herself. Be cool. Be cool and normal.

“Thanks for the help,” she calls to Harry as she walks over to the near-empty truck, keys jangling on the carabiner around her thumb.

Harry’s head pops up from behind the cab of the truck, the wispy curls at her hairline springing up with the heat. She gives Louis a tight smile. “Not a problem,” she says, leaning against the last cardboard box in the truck bed. 

Louis is trying her best not to stare at the way the sun glows on the downy hairs on Harry’s knees, nor the fact that Harry is not wearing a bra under her floral blouse. They look at each other awkwardly. Louis can feel goosebumps pop up on her arms as a gust of wind rolls through Roswell, pulling with it dust and the promise of a slightly cooler evening. Harry chews on her bottom lip.

“So, do you want to pass me that?” Louis asks, gesturing towards the box.

“Oh!” Harry says, seemingly having forgotten that it was there. “Yeah, of course.”

“I could also get it—“

“No, I got it,” Harry hoists up the box and maneuvers it down to Louis. Their hands brush, and Louis teeters for a moment before regaining her balance.

They walk into the house in painful silence, both wincing as the screen door slams shut. Louis flees upstairs to put the box away and takes a moment to compose herself before making her way back to the kitchen, where she hopes Harry will have already taken the loaned Tupperware and left.

The universe hates her, so Harry is seated at the kitchen counter next to Lottie, both munching from a giant box of goldfish crackers. Her mom is busying herself with the dishwasher while Phoebe and Daisy collect dirty dishes from around the kitchen. “So I have another 24 hour shift starting on Wednesday morning, but I have the long weekend off for you girls’ graduation. The rest of the week is 9-5, thank god,” Jay says. “Can you girls handle dinner Wednesday? There’s some chicken in the freezer.”

Louis leans uncomfortably against the fridge, moving to shove her hands into her pockets before realizing that she does not, in fact, have pockets, and settles instead for crossing her arms. Her sisters and mom chat about their schedules for this week while she zones out completely. 

“Is that all the dishes?” Phoebe asks, and when Jay nods, she turns and flounces into the living room. Daisy sneaks away with her, and the sound of the Netflix opening jingles across the house.

Despite their mom’s best efforts, the dishwasher doesn’t start, even though the green lights on the display are lit up. Lottie sighs and smacks it, and it rumbles to life.

“Oh, Harry, I talked to your mom the other day,” Jay says. “She said you got in an accident?”

Harry blushes furiously. “Um, yeah. It’s not too big a deal, I mean… it wasn’t too bad, just a fender bender.”

“She thought the car was in reverse and drove headfirst into a wall,” Lottie snickers. Harry throws a goldfish at her.

“Regardless, Anne said it’ll be in the shop for a couple of weeks.” Jay gives Lottie a warning look. “Do you need rides to work until then?”

“Oh, no, no, it’s okay, I have my bike. Thanks though!” Harry smiles graciously, cheeks still flushed. She’s always been so charming; middle-aged women and old folks alike always all but pinch her cheeks.

Jay waves her off dismissively. “It’s too far to bike, in this heat. I’m sure Louis can drive you, that soccer camp you’re coaching doesn’t start til after school gets out next week, right Lou?”

Louis stares disbelievingly at her. Lottie munches her goldfish, looking between Harry, Louis, and their mother. 

Harry’s ears go pink and she looks at the floor. “No, honestly, it’s okay, I can just bike from school—“ she stutters.

“Louis has nothing to do anyways, I don’t want her cooped up in the house all day,” Jay says, batting her hands as if to flick away any nonsense excuse Harry could come up with.

“I mean… if it’s okay with Louis.” Harry’s expression is unreadable.

“Yeah, uh—“ Louis clears her throat. “Of course. Not a problem.”

——————————

Louis lays in bed in a towel staring at the ceiling. She took a cold shower almost an hour ago and hasn’t bothered to get dressed. She blames the heat, the fan in her room doing nothing but blowing warm air onto her shins, but her restlessness runs deeper. She cannot believe that she foolishly forgot that Harry Styles would be around this summer. The full cardboard boxes stacked on the floor glare tauntingly at her. She glares back. 

“LOUISA!” The door is slammed open by a pajama-clad Lottie with her wet hair wrapped in a towel.

“Jesus, Lottie, can you knock?” Louis scrambles to pull the towel tighter around her.

Lottie catapults herself onto Louis’ bed, knocking the wind out of her. 

“What the fuck was that all about?” she demands.

“Ugh, Lots— get off, I’m getting dressed!” Louis shoves her sister off of her, readjusting her towel and sitting up on the bed. She loves Lottie, of course she does, but right now Lottie’s intrusion overrides any parental instinct Louis usually has with her little sisters.

“Why were you acting so weird around Harry?”

“I wasn’t,” says Louis. 

“Yes you were.”

“Was not.”

“Were too!” Lottie pokes at her.

Louis shoves at her halfheartedly, knowing she could win this wrestling match in any other circumstance.

“None of your business,” she huffs. “Get out of my room.”

Lottie slides off the bed and sinks into Louis’ old beanbag chair instead.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend to text? Senior prank to orchestrate? Grad night parties to plan?” Louis lobs a pillow at her sister. She knows she’s acting childish, but there’s something about being in her childhood bedroom in the desert that makes her feel fourteen.

Lottie catches the pillow easily. She flips her head upside down and tugs the towel off her bleach-blond hair, flicking water at Louis’ face when she flips her head right-side-up again. Her smug expression makes Louis roll her eyes.

“I have a whole week to do all of that. Graduation’s not til Saturday.” Lottie runs her fingers through her hair, trying to detangle it, still throwing drops of water towards Louis, “And don’t change the subject. Just because you and Harry don’t really hang out anymore doesn’t mean you have to be super weird around her.”

Louis sighs, and gets up to rifle through her duffel bag for some pajamas. There’s nothing more annoying than Lottie being right.

“It was just… surprising. I hadn’t seen her in a while,” she says, settling for a pair of boxer briefs and a faded Washington Huskies t-shirt. That doesn’t even begin to cover it, but she’s not about to get into a discussion with her little sister about the history between her and said little sister’s best friend.

Someone knocks at the door. “Lottie, do you have my hairbrush?”

“No,” says Lottie, at the same time that Louis squeaks, “Oi! I’m naked! Was there a party in my room tonight that I wasn’t aware of?”

Phoebe comes in and shrugs, settling herself onto Louis’ bed. “What are you guys talking about?”

“Nothing!”

“How weird Louis was around Harry today,” says Lottie. 

“Was she?” says Phoebe.

“I was not!” Louis protests, tugging her boxers on underneath her towel and pulling her shirt over her head. “None of your business, either of you,” she says, and sits on the bed with her legs outstretched, touching her hands to her ankles.

Phoebe sticks her legs out, too, wiggling her purple-polished toes. “My legs are almost as hairy as yours,” she giggles.

Louis squints at her, and sticks her hand out to feel Phoebe’s shin.

“No they’re not, they’re just prickly,” she says. “You shave now?”

Phoebe shrugs, “Yeah, I guess.” She sits up so that the air from the fan is blowing directly on her.

Lottie says smugly sticks her leg onto the bed from her seat on the beanbag. “I win.”

“That’s not fair, you just shaved,” Phoebe whines.

“You don’t have to shave,” Louis sits up higher so that the fan hits her too.  
Phoebe rolls her eyes, “I know. But boys don’t like it.”

Louis shrugs. Her sisters now how she feels about boys and their opinions. 

“Guys suck about that kind of thing. Harry stopped shaving and then she and her boyfriend broke up, like, two weeks later,” Lottie says. She’s unsuccessfully trying to pull her wet hair into a bun with a stretched-out scrunchie.

“She and Nick broke up?” Phoebe asks.

“In like, March, Phoebe, keep up,” Lottie snaps her fingers in her sister’s face, earning her a hearty shove.

Louis pales, feels a lump in her throat. “Wait, Nick, like, Nick Nick?”

“Shut up, Louis, everyone knows you hate him,” Lottie says. “He’s a little annoying but he wasn’t a total asshole.”

“Yes he was,” Louis huffs.

“She seems happier now,” Phoebe notes. Louis silently agrees, even based on the very short amount of time she’s seen Harry in almost two years. Leave it to a thirteen-year-old chewing on her hair to spout those kinds of astute observations.

“Well, it’s still hard to break up with someone after two years of dating,” Lottie says. “Even if he was a dick.”

It’s too hot for this conversation, Louis is already reeling from seeing Harry in the flesh, she doesn’t want to think about Nick, too. She stares at the ceiling fan while her sisters jabber about breakup ethics. The last time she’d seen Nick she’d come away with a black eye, and while she stands by that, she regrets the aftermath. Harry had been fifteen with big honest eyes. Louis had been seventeen and furious. 

“Hey! You’re all hanging out in Lou’s room and you didn’t invite me?” Daisy’s indignant voice from the doorway kickstarts Louis’ executive decision to compartmentalize her freak-out.

“Well it wasn’t planned,” Lottie says, stretching out on the beanbag.

“You know what? It’s late,” Louis gets up, shooing Phoebe off of her bed, “Up, up, — off, get up … out — I’m going to bed. You should too, it’s a school night,” she tugs Lottie off of the beanbag and ushers her and Phoebe to the doorway. 

“Goodnight!”

“Goodnight,” they call as they shuffle to their rooms. Louis lays back on her bed and stares at the rhythmic spinning of the ceiling fan, thinking about green eyes.

__________________________________________________

Louis wakes up sometime in the afternoon the next day. Her blanket had been kicked down to the foot of the bed in the night. The purple fabric of her t-shirt is slightly damp with sweat; the midday sun is turning Louis’ bedroom into a greenhouse. She checks her phone blearily. 

Three texts from her best friend back at school, Zayn, about the photography grant project she’s working on this summer; an email from her university asking for “charitable donations” (which she promptly deletes— she’s paying tuition, for fuck’s sake); a text from her mother, reminding her to drive Harry to work at 3.

Louis checks the time and groans. She has half an hour to she heave herself out of bed and into the shower, brush her teeth, and put on real clothes. 

Far sooner than she would like, Louis rolls up to the high school and parallel parks the truck on the street across from the busy side entrance with one swift motion. The sidewalk and the lot in front of her are swarming with loud teenagers a day closer to summer vacation, getting into the cars they borrowed from their parents, the unluckier ones gossiping while boarding busses.

Louis hopes nobody recognizes her. They tend not to, what with her hair being so drastically different from the foot-long ponytail she had in high school. She rubs her face, then blinks to shift her rogue contact lenses back into position. Fucking New Mexico is drying her eyes out. She bounces her knee, tries to find something to do with her hands. 

“Hey, Louis,” 

She jumps. Calm down, for fuck’s sake. 

“Hi.” Harry stands awkwardly by the open window of the passenger side door, shading her eyes with her hand. She gestures at the door handle with the other. “Should I—“

“Yeah,” Louis says quickly. She stares at her fingers tapping on the steering wheel while Harry clambers her limbs into the truck and jostles the cassette tapes on the floor with her clog sandals. If she thinks it’s weird (or worse, cliche) that Louis has cassette tapes in her rust bucket of a pickup truck she graciously doesn’t show it. Louis herself is still silently making up her mind about Harry’s clogs.

“Do you want me to give you directions?” Harry asks, adjusting the seatbelt where it had gotten stuck.

“Just tell me the address.” Louis almost winces at her abrasive tone. Harry inputs it to the map on Louis’ phone anyway, and the frequent announcements from the automated navigation voice should make sure they won’t have to speak for the twelve minute drive to Harry’s work. 

But Louis doesn’t account for the engine spluttering as she tries to leave her parking space. Fuck not now, please not now.

She pushes in the clutch and turns the key again, and the engine grumbles to life. Louis holds in a sigh of relief and backs out of the parking lot. The biggest butch cred she has is driving a manual transmission and she’s not about to give it up now.

They drive in awkward silence for an uncomfortably long time; Louis had forgotten about the shitty traffic in this part of town right after school gets out. Harry picks at the fraying flower embroidery on her pink bell-bottoms. Louis taps her thumb on the gearshift, feeling like a massive idiot.

At a stoplight, Harry leans down to go through the cassette tapes at her feet. She sifts through some mixtapes (courtesy of Louis’ hipster best friend, Zayn) before getting to a pile of Joni Mitchell, Amy Winehouse, and Fleetwood Mac. Harry laughs. “Are these your mom’s?”

Louis bristles, “Yeah.”

“No, I mean— it’s just very much her.” Harry corrects quickly. “They’re great. I love Stevie Nicks.”

“You can play it, if you want.” Louis thumps the radio firmly twice and it crackles loudly as she switches the setting to cassette. It crackles even louder into Lorde’s wobbly voice, I love these roads where the houses don’t change, where we can talk like there’s something to say.

“You can switch it, just, hit this button here,” Louis says. She fiddles with the radio, still trying to keep an eye on the road, but of course the eject button won’t work.

“It’s okay, I love Lorde,” Harry says. “The light’s green.”

Lorde plays on as they head across town. They pass by the gated communities, strip malls with commemorative graduation banners, and through residential streets. The sky is clear and almost white with the unrelenting glare of the sun; the truck is too old to have a functional temperature gauge but Louis knows it’s well over 95.

“I didn’t know she released this album on cassette,” Harry says, breaking the uncomfortable silence between them. She’s got her hand out the window, catching the wind, not even looking at Louis. Lorde warbles through the speakers, we’re never done with killing time, can I kill it with you? til the veins run red and blue.

“She didn’t,” Louis says. “I recorded a tape of it, so I could have it in the truck.” Definitely one of the more extra things she’s done, but in her defense, the album is a masterpiece, and sometimes her mom’s old-school Brit Pop just won’t cut it. She downshifts as they come up to a stop sign, flicking the turn signal on. 

“Oh, don’t turn here,” Harry says. The automated voice of the map app vehemently disagrees. “It’s faster if you turn a few blocks down, after the park where Lottie knocked her teeth out in the third grade.”

Louis lets out a surprised laugh. 

“What?”

“Nothing, it’s just funny. I forgot about that,” Louis says. Specifically, she had forgotten that Harry was there that day that Lottie leapt off the swing at its apex and landed chin-first. Louis was ten, Harry and Lottie were eight, Daisy and Phoebe must have been three — Louis’ mom used to work at the clinic right next to that park, so Louis and her sisters would spend many an afternoon there. And where Louis and her sisters were, Harry would often follow.

Harry props her elbow on the open window, resting her chin on her hand and taking in the park as they pass. It looks different from what Louis remembers, a little more run-down, but the playground is still standing, and it looks like they’ve added a basketball court.

“We use it as a smoke spot now,” Harry says. She’s smiling in a shit-eating way, and Louis almost runs the car off the road because of her dimples. 

“Harriet Elizabeth, you’re doing drugs?” 

“All the cool kids are!” Harry says, her teasing grin too much. Louis’ own smile falters — it’s a glimpse into how easy being together used to be before everything went down the drain. Before Louis threw it away, actually. 

Her grip on the wheel tightens. One flash of Harry’s dimples and she’s already reeling in guilt, and she knows Harry feels the tone shift too because she’s leaning further against the door, training her body far away from Louis, dimpled hidden away.

It’s silent again until they arrive at the florist’s. It’s like the air has been sucked out of the cab of the truck, and Harry herself looks deflated. Louis hates it. 

“What time do you get off?” Louis asks, the truck idling as Harry steps out in front of a small storefront with a great big sign: Ramos’ Flowers and Gifts. It sits in a strip mall, between a nail salon and a Mexican restaurant.

“My step dad can pick me up,” Harry says, not making eye contact. “Thanks.” She disappears into the store, and Louis heaves a sigh and drops her head onto the steering wheel. This is bad, this is really bad.

__________________________________________________

By Wednesday Louis has gotten so antsy she goes on a run — a mistake she doesn’t realize until fifteen minutes in when the sun is blinding high in the sky and she’s dripping sweat. Maybe running during the hottest part of the afternoon isn’t the best idea, but Louis has never been a quitter. She does have some regrets when she stumbles home completely wiped out and most likely dying of heatstroke, so she downs a Gatorade in one go and jumps into a freezing cold shower.

When Daisy and Phoebe get home from school Louis convinces them to play cards with her, desperate for something to do that isn’t laying on the floor moping about how bored she is. Both Lottie and her mom are at work, Lottie at the tanning salon at the mall and her mom at the hospital.

“We should order Thai food for dinner,” Daisy says, laying down what she says are four aces into the pile of cards in the center of the three of them.

“Bullshit,” Phoebe says, and Daisy smugly reveals the cards to actually be four aces. Phoebe groans and takes the center pile into her hand.

“There’s that place at the mall, we could ask Lottie to pick up takeout when she gets off work,” Louis says. “Don’t tell mom I didn’t cook for you, though.”

“She knows you can’t cook for shit,” Daisy says.

“Okay, can we calm the fuck down with the language?” Louis says. They may be teenagers, but they’re still babies in her eyes.

They do get Thai food for dinner, brought by Lottie, and they save some red curry for their mom for when she gets home in the morning. They retreat to their separate rooms by nightfall, and it’s well after midnight by the time Louis heads out to smoke on the back porch. She’s going to need to gear up emotionally to drive Harry to work tomorrow, and to see her again far too many times this summer. No better way to do that than get a little high, and maybe call Zayn.

Zayn’s kind of a sensitive subject, so Louis takes a couple hits of her pipe before calling. Though she had practically cheer-lead for her two best friends to get together, she had secretly dreaded it when Zayn and Liam started falling for each other. It had been the three of them, ZaynLiamandLouis, for so long, and Louis has never dealt well with feeling excluded. She puts the pipe to her lips and flicks the lighter. It’s not exactly worse now, but the dynamic has definitely shifted—Louis finds herself a third wheel with more and more frequency these days. As she exhales, she sags and dials Zayn’s number.

“Louis,” says Zayn after three rings. Never one for niceties.

“Are you awake?”

“Yeah,” Zayn’s voice is gravelly, a sure sign that she’s been working for far too long. “I’m actually in the studio right now, didn’t realize what time it was.”

“It’s late, Z, do you have a ride home?” The neighborhood is generally safe, but she does not like the idea of her obviously butch friend walking the ten blocks from the photography studio to the apartment by herself at one in the morning.

“Yeah, yeah, Liam’s coming to pick me up in— well, in three minutes actually,” Zayn yawns. “What’s up? Small town Tinder date go south already?”

“Do you really think so little of me?” Louis says. “And yes I did get into Roswell safe, thanks for asking.”

“Thought you’d run off the road in that fucking rust bucket,” Zayn chuckles.

“I’m actually in a crisis right now, Zaynie,” Louis says.

“What’s the crisis, Lou.” She knows Zayn is fighting back a smile, despite the monotone.

“Y’know my sister?”

“Which one?”

“Lottie.”

“‘Course,” Zayn says.

“Okay, so, her best friend, she lives a couple streets over, she’s like— we have, uh, history?” Louis pinches the bridge of her nose. This is exhausting. “Kind of. Not really. In, um, a different way. We were kids, and drunk, I think.”

“Is this the girl you grew up with? With the traumatic theater party in high school?” Zayn asks. 

“Yeah,” Louis sighs. “She’s at my house 24/7 hanging out with Lottie and with my mom just… being sweet and charming and she doesn’t wear a bra so you can see like, her entire nipples.”

“Okay, so she’s beautiful and off-limits,” Zayn says. “Just say you’re busy when she’s over, lock yourself in your room or something.”

Louis groans. “I’m driving her to work every day for the foreseeable future.”

“Shit.”

“And she hates me. It’s horrible, I drove her yesterday and it was so painfully silent I didn’t know what to do. She was like, wedged against the passenger door so she could be as far away from me as possible.” Louis takes another big inhale and releases the smoke slowly, watching it swirl into the buzzing porch light.

“Is she gay?” Zayn says. There’s a door slam and keys jingling, the familiar routine of locking up the photography studio rustling through the phone.

“That’s not the point, that’s not even an option,” Louis says. She chews on her fingernail, takes another hit. “She did break up with her boyfriend a few months ago.”

“Huh,” Zayn muses.

What does she mean, huh? This is a crisis. “What? What do I do?”

“Fuck, probably,” Zayn says matter-of-factly, shifting her phone to the other ear. 

“Zayn!”

“I’m not even kidding, I think you should go for it. She’s hot and probably gay, you know each other well, and you have all summer. See what happens.”

“Has anyone ever told you you give terrible advice?” Louis says. 

“Has my advice ever done you wrong?” Zayn asks.

A car horn honks on Zayn’s end, interrupting Louis’ silent indignity.

“Look, Louis, I love you, but Liam’s here,” Zayn says. “I’ll call you later, but don’t do that thing where you freak out and obsess over it all night.”

“Okay,” Louis sighs.

“I’m serious.” Zayn’s quietly authoritative tone triggers an image in Louis’ mind of her friend’s grumpy eyebrows.

“I know. I won’t,” she says.

“Love you,” Zayn says. Liam shouts a muffled “Hi Louis!” from the drivers’ seat.

“Love you too. Say hi to Lima for me,” Louis says.

She hangs up the phone, staring blankly at the lockscreen for a moment. What is she even doing? This situation is dredging up all kinds of lesbian insecurities she thought she had shaken off years ago. She’s the hottest butch in the university district, for fuck’s sake. She did Dykes on Bikes last June, she makes pretty girls laugh at gay bars she sneaks into, and she owns at least three different strap-ons. She takes one last hit of the pipe before tapping out the ash and heading quietly inside. 

She blows out the smelly candle she lit in the kitchen and brushes her teeth in the upstairs bathroom, hopefully hard enough to clean out the jackhammering in her brain. Being attracted to a girl she’s not supposed to be attracted to is nothing new, but Harry… it’s too much to deal with. It’s too messy, and she could kick herself for stupidly not preparing for the possibility of her sister’s best friend being around a lot this summer.

Her mind runs at a million miles an hour while tugging on her tank top and boxers, still reeling as she throws herself onto her bed, her clothes a heap on the floor while the box fan feebly rustles her hair. She feels small in this bed, her arms and legs not quite touching the edges even as she starfishes, very different from the twin in the dorm she’s gotten used to over the past two years. Floating in a queen-sized bed, swimming in gay self-consciousness makes her feel as small as she did when she was an anxiously half-out long-haired insecure teenager.

Maybe it’s just Roswell. 

Calling Zayn eased her mind a little bit at least, reminding her there’s still a whole world beyond the desert — Zayn’s always been good at dragging Louis out of whatever emotional hole she’s dug herself into. She definitely won’t be heeding her advice, though, and she lets out a frustrated scoff just thinking about the ridiculous prospect. See what happens, my ass. 

Tired of listening to herself think, Louis turns over on the bed and opens her phone. Socials are a nightmare, but mercifully mind-numbing. Somehow she finds herself elbow-deep in Harry’s feed, looking at posts from well over five years ago. 

She flips to Harry’s tagged photos, and front and center is one Lottie posted: a throwback Thursday (to which Louis rolls her eyes) of Louis, Lottie, and Harry as little kids, playing in the sprinkler in the Tomlinson’s backyard.

Fucking Lottie. Leave it to her to know exactly what would push Louis’ buttons. Louis would love nothing more than to behave like a child and thunder down the stairs and burst into Lottie’s room, but given the hour, she settles for quietly making her way through the house, avoiding the squeaky floorboards in the kitchen and slipping in to her sister’s room quietly.

“Lottie,” she whisper-shouts.

Lottie jumps from where she’s laying on her bed, drops her phone. “Jesus, Louis, I thought you were mom.”

She’s got a lit joint between her fingers, but to the untrained nose her room just smells like the three different sticks of incense she’s burning. “It smells like weed in here,” Louis closes the door carefully.

“You smell like weed,” Lottie says. It’s well after two on a Wednesday (well, Thursday morning, now), Lottie should absolutely be asleep, not smoking weed indoors. The window is open, at least. Louis’ room may have the privilege of roof access, but Lottie’s room has the advantageous factor of being downstairs, as far away from their mom’s room as possible. Jay’s still at work, anyway.

“Where did you find the picture you posted today?” Louis chucks a couple of throw pillows off to sit on the end of her sister’s bed.

Lottie sits up, and with her bleary eyes sans fake eyelashes and lipstick, she looks closer to the little kid she used to be, which causes Louis’ heart to melt a little bit. She plucks the joint from her sister’s hand and takes a drag herself.

“The one with Harry in it?” Lottie smirks.

Louis rolls her eyes, not giving her the satisfaction.

“Why do you care?” says Lottie, grinning wider.

“Because.”

“Because why?” 

“Because, Lottie!” she huffs, “Just,— was it in one of the albums in mom’s room?” 

Lottie shifts, glancing momentarily at what is definitely one of the old photo albums from their mom’s room lying closed on the messy nightstand next to her.

“Maybe,” Lottie says.

“Can I see it?”

“Yeah, whatever,” Lottie sighs, sitting back and taking another drag, “Why does this even matter to you?”

Louis shrugs, holding the book to her chest. She’s just trying to confirm something, really, but Lottie doesn’t need to know that. Lottie taps out the joint in a teacup that she’s apparently using as an ash tray. 

Louis hadn’t noticed earlier, but Lottie’s put up some string lights around her headboard, illuminating the old pop-punk posters on her purple walls. The lights are changing colors on a gradient, from blue to green to yellow to red to purple and back again, in the most mesmerizing way.

“Harry was my friend first, you know,” Lottie says.

Louis sighs. She doesn’t have an argument for that, and Lottie knows it.

“You shouldn’t be up this late,” Louis says instead.

“You’re the one barging into my room at two in the morning!”

Louis rolls her eyes. 

“God, fuck you, Louisa,” Lottie kicks good-naturedly at her sister to get off the edge of her bed, and curls back on her pillows to sleep. “Goodnight.”

“Love you too, Charlotte!” Louis chirps on her way out.

Back in her room, Louis flips open the album, greeted with dorky photos of her and her sisters when they were little. This must be from the summer they moved to Roswell, given one photo of her and her sisters in front of the house, her and Lottie each holding a baby Daisy and Phoebe. 

She rifles through and finds the picture Lottie posted; Louis, Lottie, and Harry in the backyard in an inflatable kiddie pool, Louis pouring a bucket of water on her sister’s head. It’s a cute photo and Louis smiles, even if she had been to young to remember that day. The photo next to it has a little five-year-old Harry, already with her signature scrunched eyebrows, avenging Lottie by pouring her own bucket of water on Louis’ head.

That’s not what she’s trying to find right now, though. Louis flips forward to halfway through the book, where she knows has the pictures from the Christmas she turned seventeen. Jay had hosted a party on Christmas Day — the day after Louis’ birthday — and invited everyone on the block, even flew in Louis’ nan from England. Louis turns the pages apprehensively. She wonders vaguely what she really expects from finding these photos; it’s not like seeing pictures of her and Harry when they used to be close is going to make this summer any easier. 

Finally, she finds the photo she was looking for. Her and Harry, age 17 and 15 respectively, posing together very uncomfortably with the Tomlinson’s Christmas tree in the background. They’re both at the most awkward phases they could possibly be, Louis with her too-long hair and snapback, Harry with her gangly limbs and acne. Louis remembers thinking Harry was the prettiest girl in the world, and remembers having her arm awkwardly around Harry’s shoulder made her skin burn, made her insides squirm and ignited every instinct in her to run away. But Louis’ mum had insisted on the photo, completely unaware that the dregs of what remained of Louis and Harry’s friendship had crumbled just weeks before.

Louis slams the album shut. Was she just trying to remind herself of what happened? She shakes herself, get it together. There’s no use dragging up old shit. Misplaced nostalgia is really only going to end up with her hurting her own feelings. She rolls over in bed and kicks the sheets to the foot, sprawls out and plays pointless games on her phone until her eyes droop and she gratefully falls asleep.

__________________________________________________

Friday rolls around and Louis is so bored and so sick of moping around in the heat that she goes for another run (early in the morning this time, when it’s still 85 but at least it’s not 103) — might as well be in some kind of shape if she’s going to be coaching soccer to a bunch of children starting next week. It has the added bonus of helping her clear her head, letting her think of anything but Harry. Like what drills she can do with her camp kids, or the internship applications she’s been avoiding.

She busies herself the rest of the day, too, getting things ready for Lottie’s graduation on the weekend. It feels lonely in the house by herself in the middle of the day, with her sisters at school and her mother at work. She blasts some trash reality TV in the living room just to have something to fill her head with while she does the prepping for the snacks Jay planned for Lottie’s grad party on Sunday. 

Her phone dings with a text from an unknown number labelled “Maybe: Harry Styles”: Hi Louis, it’s Harry. I’m getting a ride from Niall to work today but do you mind picking me up after? I get off at 10.

Louis takes a deep breath and types back a quick no problem! She taps the name to create a new contact, but instead her phone pops up with the suggestion to merge this number with an existing contact: harold with a strawberry emoji and a moon emoji. She didn’t know Harry had gotten a new number and she definitely didn’t remember having the old one saved, but she doesn’t have the heart to change the nickname. Might as well keep it as an homage to what they used to be.

It’s a completely silent ride from the florist’s to Harry’s house that evening, with the exception of Lorde playing quietly on the stereo. Louis parks on the street next to Harry’s driveway, keeps the engine running. Only bad people live to see their likeness set in stone. So what does that make me? Lorde drones.

The automatic lights in the cab cast a harsh shadow on Harry’s face, and Louis looks away; if she looks at the cold glow around her eyelashes, the frustrated crinkle between her eyebrows, the sun flush on her nose, she’ll never look away. She doesn’t think she can deal with Harry’s honesty right now. Louis has always been terrified of how openly Harry wears her emotions, plain and simple for anyone to see. 

“Lou.”

“What?” she says, neck nearly snapping at the nickname. More aggressively than intended, but her hackles are raised. Harry’s t-shirt with butterflies printed on it matches the long, flowy skirt she’s wearing; Louis wouldn’t normally notice, but both are the same shade of green as Harry’s eyes.

Harry sighs, resigned in a way Louis isn’t really sure she understands. “Do you want to smoke?”

Louis blinks. “Um, here?”

“Yeah,” Harry shrugs. “I have a joint in my bag. Long day.”

“Okay,” Louis says.

Harry pulls out the joint and puts it between her lips, flicks the lighter, the small flame flickering and going out immediately. Unconsciously, Louis reaches out a hand to cup around the flame, shielding it from the odd gusts of wind flowing in through the open windows. Only when she takes her hand away does she realize how close she had leaned in towards Harry’s face. She shifts away quickly, almost as if being stung.

Harry breathes in deeply, lets the smoke flow softly out of her mouth and nose, tendrils floating in the orange light of the streetlamps. Crickets chirp in the distance, and Louis keeps her eyes trained on the sky through the windshield; the moon is full tonight.

Harry passes her the joint, which has gone out. The desert feels tight, like the tension and lingering heat from the day is a pillow slowly suffocating them. Before Harry can offer to shield the cherry from the breeze, Louis waves her off and uses her shirt as a barrier instead, holding it away from the flame by the collar and tucking her chin towards her body, lighting the joint under the fabric of the old jersey. She sucks inn the smoke and holds it in her lungs. 

She can feel Harry looking at her. Another terrifying thing: all the staring Harry does. She always used to stare until it was weird, and then would keep staring for too long after that. Louis doesn’t dare look over, desperate to keep her head on straight as it is.

“Moon’s in Scorpio,” Harry says. Of course. Leave it to Harry to know about the divine spiritual feminine connections to the moon or whatever hippie woo-woo energy she’s been into since they were kids. Louis bristles thinking about nights spent with Harry gleefully trying to teach her about astrology when they were young teenagers. 

Twice she’s let Harry down, unforgivably, to be honest.

“Louis,” Harry says. Louis blinks, leaving her thoughts, orange light from the streetlamp flashing in her eyes for a moment through a thin veil of smoke. “Can this not be weird?”

“It’s not weird,” she knows it’s a lie as soon as it leaves her mouth.

“It’s weird.”

Louis shrugs, runs her hand through her hair. Harry says nothing, opting for another drag. Louis taps her thumb against the steering wheel, listening to the sounds of the desert, the wind. A couple of cats down the street yowl, either fighting or fucking, Louis doesn’t necessarily want to find out.

Harry’s leaning comfortably back in the seat, smoking and holding a potted plant in her lap. Making no move to leave the truck, even though it’s almost eleven the night before her graduation ceremony. 

It’s a little infuriating, Louis decides suddenly. She’s the one who didn’t want Louis to drive her to work while her car’s in the shop, why is she trying to make this harder than it already is? Isn’t she sick of seeing Louis, after everything that happened? How is she able to act like things are fine, like either of them want to be in this situation in the first place?

“Don’t you have to go?” Louis asks.

Harry looks at her, genuinely surprised at Louis’ harsh tone. “Don’t be a dick, Louis,” her expression closes off, resigned in a way Louis hasn’t seen her in a long time. It hurts, but she doesn’t know how to fix it. It’s probably better this way, anyway. Harry gathers her things, taking great care with the plant in one hand and her bag in the other. 

“Wait,” she calls as Harry slams the door shut. The sound is stark, echoing against the night. 

Harry’s got her back to her. Louis recognizes the rigidity of Harry’s shoulders as a sign she’s actually upset; she scrambles for something to say.

“The Scorpio moon, what does that mean?” Nice, Tomlinson.

Harry turns and leans on her forearms on the rim of the passenger side window, brows furrowed. Instead of answering the question, she sighs. “I don’t want you to ruin my last summer in Roswell. I have plans, I’m working, I want to … I don’t know.” She trails off, gesturing to end her sentence. “And you being here is a wrench in the whole thing.”

“This wasn’t my idea,” Louis says incredulously. 

Harry shrugs again, avoiding Louis’ gaze. Some coyotes howl in the distance, and the mosquito zapper on Harry’s front porch crackles. 

“I’m not going to just.. not go see Lottie just because I’ll run into you. And it’s too far for me to bike to work, and you’re the only person I know with a car. It doesn’t have to be like this.” Harry’s hands punctuate her words, eclectic bracelets jangling as she gets more worked up. “I’m actually trying to make this situation easier for both of us, and you’re being avoidant like you always are!”

“Are you serious?” Louis gawks. “I’m the one trying to keep everything in the past and move on! Don’t make it messier than it has to be.”

Harry snorts, looks down at the pavement, “Ignoring it, yep, that’s the mature way to handle an uncomfortable situation.”

“Sarcasm, picture of maturity,” Louis spits.

“Do you ever take anything seriously, Louis?” Harry looks her dead in the eye, with that way that Harry looks at her that always causes her stomach to flutter with the invasive understanding of being seen, “Or is this all a big game to you?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” Louis says.

“I know enough to piss you off,” Harry grins back, the joint between her fingers smoking lazily. Louis has to be imagining the quirk of her lips, the teasing lilt of her voice. 

Shut it down, Tomlinson, “What do you want from me, Harry?”

“We don’t need to be friends, Louis, I’m just asking that you don’t act like it’s your worst fucking nightmare every time I’m in your presence.”

Louis smiles wryly at the ceiling of the cab. This is ridiculous. She’s not going to let an eighteen-year-old tell her how she’s feeling, as if she can’t fucking tell herself.

The silent street sighs beneath them. “You’re important to me,” Harry’s voice is soft, and she’s fiddling with her fingers, the light from the street lamp glinting at her rings. “And I know I’m important to you.”

Louis stomach sinks. This is exactly why agreeing to live in Roswell for the summer was a terrible fucking idea.“I’m sorry,” she says, and she means it.

“Are you?” Harry says. Her gaze is piercing. Louis doesn’t blame her, so she says nothing.

Harry takes another deep inhale from the joint and blows the smoke towards the sky slowly, then stubs it out on the door of the truck. “Thanks for the ride.”

Louis is speechless for once in her life. She watches Harry walk up her porch steps, wind chimes creating a haunting melody accompanied by the creak of the door when Harry opens and closes it, not looking back. This was such a stupid idea. Louis drops her head back onto her seat and breathes a sigh, the air suddenly clearer and colder now that Harry’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be part of the girl direction fic fest 2020 but i wasn't able to finish it in time so here it is now!! i've never posted a fic before let's go lesbians let's goooo...... probably lookin at updates once every two weeks? probably about 5 chapters? we'll see
> 
> here is my [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/harrys-bakery) come say hi :)


End file.
